


The Try Guys Try: FANFICTION

by Mithrigil



Category: Buzzfeed: The Try Guys
Genre: Breaking the Fourth Wall, First Time, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Roleplay Logs, missing episode, writing fanfiction!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-18
Updated: 2015-12-18
Packaged: 2018-05-07 08:41:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5450378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mithrigil/pseuds/Mithrigil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Join the Try Guys as they plunge headlong into the Archive of Our Own! Will Keith's MCU gangbang wow the masses? Can Zach reconcile his love of Harry Potter canon with its fandom? Will Eugene's cannibal cops serial still work if he files off the serial numbers? Find out as the Try Guys tackle the world...of Fanfiction!</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Try Guys Try: FANFICTION

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kissoffools](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kissoffools/gifts).



It began, as nearly all episodes begin, with Eugene having a vague notion of what was supposed to happen, and the other three Try Guys knowing jack shit.

“Fanfiction is...” Zach said articulately, looking at the cameraman instead of the camera.

“Fanfiction is like fiction about something that already exists, I guess?” Ned explained, slightly more articulately. “Like the Star Trek novels, except free.”

“People come together on the Internet and write about their favorite shows just for fun,” Keith explained. “That’s what Eugene says, anyway.”

Eugene preened at the camera. “It’s this amazing community of people who didn’t get enough out of the movie or book or whatever they love, so they make their own. Or add to it. Or change it a little. Both my sisters write it but they’ve never let me read it before.”

Zach’s eyebrow piqued above the rim of his glasses. “Why?”

“Because it’s porn,” Keith said.

No, that is not YouTube lagging: the world did, in fact, just hiccup and subsequently freeze on Zach’s mouth gaping like a knockoff realdoll.

 

**EPISODE 1: What is fanfiction?**

“It’s not _all_ porn.” Eugene made a conciliatory gesture that wouldn’t have been out of place at the Try Guys Try Bullfighting. “It’s just that most of the stuff that doesn’t happen on the shows themselves is porn, so that’s a void that fanficcers fill.”

Keith grinned, rubbing his chest. “I could fill that void.”

“Oh my god,” Zach said.

Meanwhile, Ned wondered, _mostly_ to himself, whether his wife had ever written such things.

***

A subtitle banner helpfully supplied that the resident expert for this episode was Naoyou Yesvik, author of an acclaimed series of books about dinosaurs navigating the French Revolution. “Fanfic is just one kind of Transformative Work.” She enumerated on her fingers, “Fanvids, podfics, cosplay, meta--”

“They make videos too?” Keith asked.

Yesvik nodded. “Yeah, they take clips from shows and movies and edit them to tell a new story, or set a music video. It’s all about transforming the canon to suit the kind of story you want to tell. A lot of things can be considered fanfiction that you wouldn’t guess, like _Wicked,_ which transformed _The Wizard of Oz_ , and then the musical version transformed the book version.”

Zach blinked. “There’s a book?”

Eugene thwapped him upside the head with all due respect.

A cunning use of editing cut to the chase: “What sets fanfiction apart from professional derivative works is that it’s free. Gregory Maguire and Steven Schwartz make money off of _Wicked_ , but the people who write the _Shoebox Project_ or _My Immortal_ or, I don’t know, Steve/Tony, aren’t making any money at all. They’re just sharing it with the world for free. And writing for fun.”

“And porn,” Keith, predictably, added.

“Will you shut up about the porn,” Zach said.

“Wait,” Ned raised his hands, “did you just say Steve/Tony? As in Steve Rogers and --”

“--Tony Stark, yeah.” Yesvik smiled, conspiracy bright on her face.

***

The Try Guys congregated around a large sponsored MacBook, intent on the screen.

“Oh my god,” said Zach.

“Oh my god,” said Keith, in a manner that conjured up tildes and multiple iterations of the same smirking emoji.

“I can see it,” said Eugene.

“I don’t know,” said Ned, “I like Science Bros better.”

***

“So for our first challenge,” Ned, wearing a different but near-identical polo shirt, informed the viewers at home, “we’ll be getting into different fandoms. and reading what they’ve got to offer. I’m more of the bookish type here so I’m gonna try Lord of the Rings.”

 **NED** , a subtitle proclaimed.  
**Fandom: Middle Earth canon**  
**Handle: Legomybutt**  
**Looking to read: Bromance-to-Romance**

He set up the laptop with some aplomb and settled in with a mug of something that definitely wasn’t _just_ coffee. A moment of reading later, he caught the cameraman’s eye. “Bilbo and Smaug? Really?”

A faint voice off camera explained the casting connection to a certain iteration of the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

“Huh,” said Ned. “Okay. I wonder where all the Legolas and Gimli stuff is. Is that too old-school?”

**Several cuts later:**

“Oh.” He stroked his fingers along the trackpad absently. “I. Uh. I think I need to call my wife. Can I call my wife?”

***

“Let’s _do this!_ ” Keith cheered, plopping onto a couch, massive limbs akimbo.

**KEITH**  
**Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe**  
**Handle: HeyThereBigGuy**  
**Looking to read: Smut**

“Yeah, I’m looking in the right place. Come to papa, come to papa.” He piled up tab after tab. “These guys have a thing for gangbangs and that’s definitely something that wasn’t in the movies.”

**A time-lapse later:**

“I feel a real kinship with the Incredible Hulk,” Keith explains. “I mean, I’m the Hulk and Bruce Banner rolled into one! Yeah, I’m the Incredible _Hunk_. Big ball of emotions and squishy white science monster. It’s really good to see him getting so much love. ”

He reads.

“ _So_ much love,” he repeated, wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more. “Lot of him to go around.”

***

“Okay, looks like it’s up to me to represent the other side of the pond again,” Eugene said, sidling up to his desk. “I bet the fanfic for anime is off the hook.”

**EUGENE**  
**Fandom: Attack on Titan**  
**Handle: Duk Bukkake**  
**Looking to read: AUs and Crossovers**

A few flashback clips from _The Try Guys Watch Anime for the First Time_ remind the viewers at home just how badass Attack on Titan is, complete with shouts of **JAEGER!** And, speaking of Jaeger,

**One intercession later:**

“Yeah, Reiner and Berthold totally had a thing.” Eugene knocked back another shot and went on reading, trailing his fingertip down the screen. “And apparently they’re having the same thing on every college campus in the world. And every coffee shop. And so far it’s cool even without the Titans--wait, are there any where the Titans are the ones in college?”

**Two tabs later:**

“There’s one where they’re hockey players, does that count?”

***

Deep in the confines of a blanket fort, Zach huddled over his laptop in intense concentration. “Eugene said it wasn’t all porn,” he said, perhaps more defensively than he meant. “Do people really write porn about children’s books?”

Somewhere, a Care Bear cried out.

**ZACH**  
**Fandom: Harry Potter (duh)**  
**Handle: Specs and Bolts**  
**Looking to read: Thoughtful explorations of canon events and worldbuilding**

“Well, the good news is that a _lot_ of people write stuff for Harry Potter. God, I don’t know where to start.” He curled closer to the fleecey blanket wall, shoulders hunched. “The bad news is the same as the good news. There’s _so much of it_.”

“That’s what she said,” Keith piped in from outside the blanket fort.

“My spot, hello?” Zach cried, curling over his laptop in some sort of reverse _Pieta_.

“It was too easy!” Keith’s flailing disrupted the walls of the blanket fort, sending ripples of enthusiasm straight out to the audience. “So what’s your ship?”

“I’m not reading for ships. I’m reading for _Hogwarts_.”

“You know there’s one with the Giant Squid and--”

Zach grabbed for the blanket walls to try and shove Keith out. The actual effect was more along the lines of destroying the fort and several people’s childhoods.

“--Is that a Care Bear?” Zach gaped, incredulous.

***

“I told you it wasn’t all porn,” Zach said, sometime later, its passage evident by the total destruction of the blanket fort and the presence of several empty bags of product placement nestled among the couch cushions. He pointed proudly at the laptop. “There! Thousands of thoughtful explorations of the Wizarding World. I am content.”

“So what kind of thoughtful exploration are you going to write?” Keith munched on Cheetos and licked his fingertips in a manner that anyone in possession of slash goggles would call _unintentionally salacious_.

Presumably, Zach’s subsequent reaction was in response to the notion of _writing_ rather than Keith’s solicitous behavior: “Wait, what?”

 

 

**EPISODE 2: Fanfic Challenge!**

Eugene ran a hand through his coiffure. “Okay, so today we’re having a write-in! We’re all gonna write fanfiction for our chosen canons and post it to the Archive of Our Own.”

In what was fast becoming a pattern, Keith cheered; Ned whooped; Zach panicked.

***

Yesvik explained, on confession cam, “The Archive Of Our Own, or the AO3, is the premier hosting site for fanworks. Founded in two thousand and--”

The explanation is subsequently sped through, chipmunk-style with Benny Hill underscoring, complete with a timer at the bottom indicating that Yesvik spoke without interruption for a solid forty-eight minutes and sixteen seconds.

“--a new legal framework for victims of Hockey RPF,” she concluded. “I think it’s the best community for the Try Guys to make their fannish debut in!”

***

**  
The Long Walk Home  
** by **Legomybutt**  
TOLKIEN J.R.R. - Works and Related Fandoms, The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien  
 **No Archive Warnings Apply** , Legolas Greenleaf/Gimli, Legolas Greenleaf, Gimli, Friends-to-Lovers, First Kiss, Drunkenness, Xenokink, -ish, Beardplay

Rejoicing at Rivendell after the war, Gimil partakes of perhaps more than his share of Elven wine, but wine shared is pleasure doubled. 

Language: English Words: 3562 Chapters: 1/1 

***

“It was _so much fun_ ,” Ned said to the confession cam. “My wife and I edited it together and it turns out she’s just as into that two thirds of the three hunters as I am. She did most of the work on Legolas’s dialogue but I did all of Gimli’s, and we wrote a pretty awesome story together if I say so myself.”

_...Beneath the haze of drink, there was something subtly glowing about the elf: more than just the molten gold blondness of his long hair, more than the unblemished alabaster of his skin, more like tree than stone. Yes, thought Gimli, no stone could compare to the life that pulsed inside his true friend, his comrade-in-arms, his fellow Hunter. Like the heart of a volcano, his own chest threatened to erupt at the slightest provocation, and Legolas was nothing if not provoking, in his difference and his trust._

_It was with this effluence of thought that Gimli bridged the gap between them, and drew his friend down for a fiery kiss...._

“Definitely,” Ned preened. “I’d definitely do it again. If I had help, I mean. It’s better together.”

***

**Loose Lips Sink Ships by **Duk Bukkake**  
**  
Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan  
 **Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings** , Sonny (Attack on Titan), Bean (Attack on Titan), Zoe Hange, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Policemen, Cops, Cop AU, Noir, doughnut jokes, Cannibalism, Interrogation, Boxed Crooks, ankle-biting, maybe porn maybe not, maybe crossover with White Collar, I’m not sure where this is going but Hell is a good guess

A killer is prowling the streets of New York, leaving the bones of his victims picked clean. But it takes a killer to catch a killer, and Sonny and Bean, cannibal detectives, are on the case! 

Language: English Words: 4667 Chapters: 1/? 

“I gotta say, I’m hooked.” Eugene sprawled in the confession chair, looking altogether like a cat reigning over a creamery. “Like I seriously think I’m onto something here. I could talk to the guys behind the scenes about this. I _should_ talk to the guys behind the scenes about this.” 

_Bean licked his chops and leaned predatorily across the table. He so loved playing the bad cop in scenes like this. “We have ways of making you talk.”_

_“I told you!” the perp whined. “I don’t know a damned thing.”_

_I snickered so hard the jimmy fell off my doughnut. It splattered on the table, red as blood. Mmm. Maybe later. “But I bet you know people who do,” I said, reaching for my coffee. This called for a titanic dunk. “Does the name _Levi_ mean anything to you?”_

_The perp started sweating. It smelled like fear. Tasty fear._

Eugene went on, oblivious, “I might cross it over with Daredevil or something too if I can pry Keith away from sexing up the Hulk.” 

***

**  
The Incredible Cock  
** by **HeyThereBigGuy**  
Marvel Cinematic Universe , The Incredible Hulk | All Media Types  
 **No Archive Warnings Apply** , Bruce Banner/Natasha Romanov, Bruce Banner/Steve Rogers, Bruce Banner/Tony Stark, Bruce Banner/DUM-E, Bruce Banner/Butterfingers, Bruce Banner/The Vision, Bruce Banner/Pepper Potts, Bruce Banner/Clint Barton, Bruce Banner/Clint’s Wife, Bruce/Clint/Clint’s Wife, Bruce Banner/James “Rhodey” Rhodes, Bruce Banner/Thor, Bruce Banner/Loki, Bruce Banner/Jane Foster’s Brain, (only metaphorically), Bruce Banner/Maria Hill, Bruce Banner/Jasper Sitwell, Bruce Banner/Phil Coulson, Bruce Banner/Sam Wilson, Bruce Banner/Wanda Maximoff, Bruce Banner/Nick Fury, Bruce Banner/Betty Ross, Bruce Banner/the Harlem Hulks (yes, all of the hulks), Assembling - We’re Doing It Right!, Oral Sex, Anal Sex, Daisy Chain, Double Penetration, Adrenaline, Wall Sex, Sizekink, duh - freeform, Super Strength Sexings, Rimming, Cunnilingus, Voyeurism, that would be Nick Fury, also J.A.R.V.I.S, J.A.R.V.I.S is always watching, Public Sex, Semi-Public Sex, sharing is caring, Cumplay, For SCIENCE!!!, Robots, Sex Toys, Fucking Machines, Vibrators, Restraints, the Hulk’s might cannot be contained, not comics compatible, unstoppable force, oh yeah - freeform, orgy at S.H.I.E.L.D., bring the plunger, D/s, Femdom, Tea

HULK SMASH PUNY PORN COLLECTION 

HULK HOTTEST PORNSTAR THERE IS 

Language: English Words: 34339 Chapters 1/1 

Keith shrugged. “I don’t even know,” he said. “I just have it in, me I guess.” 

“They literally can’t show the viewers an excerpt of your fic,” Zach groaned. “It would just be a string of bleeps.” 

“A _sexy_ string of bleeps,” Keith corrected. 

Zach threw up his hands and paced the set in obvious exasperation. “It’s not sexy! That’s not sexy to everyone!” 

“It isn’t sexy to _you_ , you mean,” Keith corrected again. 

“No, it’s not.” Zach continued to pace, but crossed his arms tightly, as if in a deodorant commercial. “It’s like--it’s like being pelted with gummi bears.” 

Keith glanced fondly at the ceiling. “I remember that.” 

“You know, some people find _that_ sexy,” Eugene piped in from offscreen. 

“Oh my god,” Zach said, predictably. 

Keith reached one long arm over and clasped Zach on the shoulder. “It’s okay, man. I know not everything’s about sex. But I have one question for you.” 

Zach, whose cheeks had turned a gentle and telling shade of pink, looked sidelong into Keith’s enormous brown eyes. “What?” 

“What _do_ you find sexy?” Keith asked, pointed and earnest and hopeful. 

And Zach, in that moment, understood the unstoppable force of which Keith was so fond. 

****

***

**EPISODE 3: Internet Role-Playing!**

Zach, safe again within the confines of his reconstituted blanket fort, opened the laptop again. Keith’s beatific Muppet face greeted him in a Skype window almost immediately. “You ready for this?”

“Yes,” Zach said, with much more authority than any of his previous displays of scandalized reticence. “Do you need me to walk you through it again?”

“Yeah, once more for the viewers at home.”

“All right. You’ve played D &D--”

“Duh, Zach.”

“--so this is like that, except you have to also write it down and there’s no dice and no Dungeon Master _Keith do not make the joke I know exactly what joke you’re going to make and everyone ever has made that joke_ ”.

“Not saying a word!” Keith, well, said.

Zach sighed and shook his head, but the shadows of the blanket fort revealed a faint crinkle in his cheeks. “Anyway, I’m Harry and you’re Ron, and we’ve just been inducted as Aurors.”

“So this is after Book 7?”

“I’m surprised you read the books.”

“Hey! I read the books, I just ignored the Epilogue.”

By all appearances, that is one of the sweetest things that Zach has ever heard. He takes a few moments to stare forlornly at the screen, then shakes his head and goes on. “ _Anyway._ Um. So now that we’re Aurors I think I’m ready to propose to Ginny.”

“My sister.”

“Yeah. So we can role-play about that. Sound good?”

“Sounds good,” Keith repeated, and settled in on his side of the screen. “I’ll go first.”

_HeyThereBigGuy: “Bloody hell,” said Ron, “that was tougher than Wizard Chess!”_

_SpecsAndBolts: Harry smiled, not quite exhausted enough to lean on the rail of the grand staircase to the Ministry of Magic, but sufficiently tired to list to the side and bump Ron’s shoulder. “But it’s done. We did it.”_

_HeyThereBigGuy: “Well yeah,” said Ron. “But it was tougher than OWLS. Tougher than _spiders_.”_

_SpecsAndBolts: “Not tougher than Voldemort,” Harry pointed out._

_HeyThereBigGuy: “I still can’t get over you saying his. You know. His name.”_

_SpecsAndBolts: “Even after all these years?”_

_HeyThereBigGuy: “There’s a lot I can’t get over about you,” Ron said, somewhat wistfully._

_SpecsAndBolts: [[OOC--Keith, you’re a natural at this!]]_

_HeyThereBigGuy: ((i told you. d &d. <3))_

Zach, perhaps a little perturbed, hesitated at the little <3, and took a long while to compose his next reply.

_SpecsAndBolts: Harry coasted to a stop with just a few steps left to go before ground level. He glanced off into the sunset, the bustle of the heart of Wizarding London: the towering spires of the banks he’d come to frequent, the glimmer of Diagon Alley at end-of-business, the swish of robes and the shifting of shadows as wizards and witches went about their work. “Has George tested anything out on you?”_

_HeyThereBigGuy: “Hey! No, I didn’t mean it like that!” Ron swerved around and looked up from the sidewalk: like this, two steps apart, he and Harry were of a height. “I just meant you’re--you know. You’re bloody amazing.”_

Zach blushed.

_SpecsAndBolts: Harry blushed. “I’m not all that, Ron.”_

_HeyThereBigGuy: “You’re the best mate I’ve ever had,” Ron corrected. “That’s more important than being any Boy who Lived. Except I’m glad you lived. You know.”_

_HeyThereBigGuy: ((did i use “mate” right there?))_

_I know,_ thought Zach.

 _SpecsAndBolts: “I know,” said Harry, with solemn understanding. But a smile fought its way up Harry’s face and settled, more in his bright green eyes than on his lips. “I’m glad too.”_

_HeyThereBigGuy: Awkwardly, Ron rubbed the back of his neck, unaccustomed to looking up at Harry. (Just to him.) “So.”_

_SpecsAndBolts: “So?”_

_HeyThereBigGuy: “You said you had something to talk to me about after the evaluation?”_

_If only you knew,_ thought Zach. But this response, in character at least, was swift in coming.

_SpecsAndBolts: “I did. About...well, we’re like brothers, right?”_

_HeyThereBigGuy: “/Please/ don’t be like my brothers,” Ron groaned. “Any of them.” He tried not to think of Fred. But no matter how many Christmas jumpers they received together, his feelings for Harry would never be quite brotherly._

Zach stared at the laptop with a mix of arousal and abject terror. The words reflected onto his glasses: _feelings. never. brotherly._

He quashed the strange, foreign hope surging in his chest _(oh my god, even my internal dialogue is beginning to sound like fanfiction)_ , and his fingers began to twitch as they hovered over the keyboard.

_SpecsAndBolts: [[Keith, I thought this was going to be about becoming Aurors and proposing to Ginny.]]_

_HeyThereBigGuy: ((just go with it. please?))_

Keith? Saying _please?_ Zach fought his sweaty palms, lost, and wiped them on the cushions of the blanket fort before he continued.

_SpecsAndBolts: “I won’t,” Harry said. “But I mean...you’ve treated me like part of the family for so long. And I’m touched by it. You know.”_

_HeyThereBigGuy: “I know,” Ron echoed. “I really do. I just hope I don’t get sick of you at work,” he added, laughing, yet somehow uncomfortable._

_SpecsAndBolts: Harry, ever attuned to Ron’s discomfort and concern, took that into account when he responded, “I wouldn’t worry about that. But would you get sick of me at home?”_

For the next five minutes, Zach stared through the warm dimness of the blanket fort, as a blank window and its flashing ellipsis indicated that Keith was composing his response. Zach’s palms continued to sweat, and his fingers to twitch, and he tried to put all thoughts from his mind except _What Would Harry Potter Do?_

_HeyThereBigGuy: Ron scuffed his shoe on the concrete. “Harry, you know I’ll never leave you.”_

Zach’s heart underwent every single effect of a Hopping Horntoads spell. His glasses slid forward on his ears as if cursed with a slime spectacles hex. The blanket fort sweltered with the heat of an overcrowded Potions classroom and there were baby mandrakes screaming in his ears, _abort! abort!_

It made it rather difficult for him to type.

_SpecsAndBolts: On the steps of the Ministry, a warm summer breeze rustled by, whipping the fringe of Harry’s bangs over the rim of his glasses, but he did not take his eyes off Ron. “Do you mean that?”_

_HeyThereBigGuy: “Aw, hell,” said Ron, and proved it with a kiss._

“Wait!” Zach shouted, bolting to his feet and immediately collapsing the blanket fort. “Keith, this wasn’t in the plan!” he shouted, which of course fell on deaf ears because Keith wasn’t actually in the room, and whatever protests Keith was making (or laughing, it was honestly hard to tell) were lost as the pile of blankets blocked the laptop’s speakers. Eventually, in the course of his panic, Zach managed to unearth the laptop and behold Keith knocking on the screen, like a character trapped in an eighties sci-fi kid’s sitcom.

“Zach? Hey, hey, are you okay?”

“You said you weren’t going to make it porn!”

“I didn’t,” Keith said, waving his hands defensively. “I just thought it was the right thing to do! Like it would be funny if Ron thought Harry was talking about him instead of Ginny.”

Zach flailed, cursing the heavens that his best friend was this much of a bridge troll. “Do the words _One Big Weasley Family_ mean _anything_ to you?!”

“Sounds kind of like us,” Keith said, suddenly serious.

“You have a girlfriend!”

“She knows.”

Zach tripped spectacularly over the violated Care Bear from two episodes ago. Once he regained his bearings and caught his breath, he was still certain he’d heard wrong. “Excuse me?”

“She knows I want to write experimental and sort of projective role-play with you,” Keith clarified. Earnest. Open. Doofy. Overlarge. “She thinks it’s adorable.”

“Oh my god,” said Zach, yet again.

***

“Oh my _god_ ,” said Zach, in an entirely different and censored context, because Buzzfeed’s agreement with YouTube does not extend to the personal sexual escapades of its Try Guys, whether they’re in character or not.

Also, Warner Bros. would have claimed copyright on the audio anyway, as some of their dialog was cribbed straight from the Film Which Must Not Be Named.

***

“Fanfiction is _awesome,_ ” Keith concluded, proudly sporting an impressive ring of hickeys.

Ned grinned and fidgeted with his wedding ring. “I know, right?”

“I am taking this _all the way to the bank,_ ” said Eugene. “All of this. Yours too, you fucking horndogs.”

Zach surreptitiously added another level of encryption to his hard drive.

***

Elsewhere, Naoyou Yesvik closed her .doc and dashed it off to her trusted beta. Thereafter, she tented her fingers over the keyboard like a cartoon villain, and rewarded herself with another Try Guys episode.

***


End file.
